COLUMN: Path to the Flathead began on an Easter morning

Twenty-five years ago, we loaded the kids in the minivan three days before Easter and set out on a 560-mile trip that forever would change our lives.

My husband had been offered a job as the production manager of a meat processing company that at the time was located outside Whitefish. It seemed like a good opportunity, but before fully committing we decided to take a look at Whitefish and Kalispell and see how the area stacked up against Sidney, where we had spent nearly a decade.

We were content on our 20-acre hobby farm in the wide-open spaces of rural Richland County. At the time we owned the meat processing plant in Sidney and I was working part-time as an economic development director and part-time as the director of emergency services for the county.

Our girls were thriving there. Heather was in kindergarten at a state-of-the-art country school that was rich in amenities because of oil revenue. Deanna had started preschool.

The idea of uprooting our lives weighed more heavily on me than on my husband. I grew up in solidly stable Minnesota dairy farm country where multi-generational farms were the norm. Our roots went deep.

My husband grew up in a family that moved close to a dozen times during his childhood as his father developed expertise in troubleshooting for SuperValu grocery stores that weren’t performing well financially. Moving from town to town was a way of life for the Hintzes.

We stayed at the Glacier Motel at the corner of U.S. 2 and 93 in Kalispell that fateful Easter weekend. My first task was assuring our girls the Easter Bunny would still find them at the motel, and indeed, big baskets of goodies mysteriously appeared outside the motel-room door on Easter morning.

I had purchased matching dresses and hats for the girls well in advance of our trip, but there was no chance to find a church service to attend because we had to meet my husband’s prospective boss for an Easter Sunday brunch.

But what I remember most about that weekend were the sleepless nights in the motel as I worried and fretted about moving to the Flathead. I prayed and silently repeated my go-to Bible verse, Philippians 4:6: “Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.”

There are those who would say choosing between Sidney and Whitefish is a no-brainer — why wouldn’t you choose a beautiful resort town in the mountains over the wind-swept prairie of Eastern Montana? The choice wasn’t as obvious for me because I loved Sidney and its people. I still do.

And now I love the Flathead. We flourished here, too. I got back into journalism a week after we moved here and never looked back.

On that Easter Sunday of 1991, though, there was still plenty of doubt in my mind even though we had decided to relocate. There was no glorious sunrise that morning, no “alleluia” moment for this monumental decision we were making. Instead, it was cloudy with graupel showers as we took photos of the girls.

What I can see clearly now but failed to fully realize then is the basis for my Christian faith — that God is in control and will send us down the path that is right for us. For my family that path led to the Flathead, and I’m very grateful for that.

Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or by email at lhintze@dailyinterlake.com.